Dark Revenge
by Iusedtohaveapenname
Summary: Rated M for graphicness to come in future chapters.
1. We shall start with the beginning

She lay in the bed quietly, staring at the wall in the semi-dark of the room. Outside, through the gossamer drapes, the moon could be seen shining softly in a full round circle to send her light in through the window to draw a faint silhouette of the girl. She, the girl, was aware of the moon, but only dimly somewhere in the back of her mind. The rest of her conscious was too occupied with the aching of her body to pay much attention to it.

He had been gentle with her, at first, when he had come and taken her from the orphanage, carrying her from the place with its terrible smells and pious nuns who spent too much time praying to see god in anything more than their little books and sticks of incense. She had been glad to be taken away, even though this man acted as though he owned her in more than just a parental way. Faintly, in her young way, she was somewhat attracted to him, but in more of the sense of a blushing childhood crush than the fully-grown love of a woman. After all, she was only thirteen.

They came within sight of a large house and the girl peeked up in wonder from the shelter of his arms. The place was absolutely huge, a mansion, nearly, and she wondered in happy anticipation what it would look like inside. Having never had a home of her own, she was looking forward to exploring and as large as this place had to be she wasn't in any doubt that she would have her own room of some sort, even if she was to be a servant. She wasn't stupid, after all, and she knew that some of the children who left the orphanage went on to worse fates than their foster parents advertised.

He had carried her up the steps in his arms, and the door had opened before them almost magically. The girl had suspected servants, for as they went in no one was to be seen, and she knew from talking to a few of the older children that a good servant was never to caught sight of if it could be helped. She supposed this included a ridiculous habit of scurrying off as fast as they could go after opening a door, and returning once the master had made his way down the hall. After coming to that conclusion, she thought nothing more of it.

They'd gone up several flights of stairs in a dizzying spiral that never seemed to end, and by the time he'd gotten to a door and stopped she was halfway asleep. To asleep, even, to notice that he didn't open the door with his hands, nor did he use them to turn on the lights.

However, as soon as he started heading for the bed, she'd been fully aware of what was going on.

And now, reflecting, she almost wished she hadn't.

The bed had been soft, and in contrast with his hard body it felt absolutely delicious and safe. She'd pressed back into it as he'd torn her shirt off, gripped it when she found that somehow she could not cry out; his teeth sunk into the column of her neck and she'd choked soundlessly at the pain, feeling the wound aching each time he took a pull of her blood. Her veins felt scratchy, worn, as he'd drained her almost dry, and she'd thought that the sandpapery feeling elicited each time her heart labored to beat was nearly enough to kill her, and she felt a kind of dawning horror at the realization that she might die alone and unnamed in the beautiful house of a deranged madman.

She hadn't thought she could get any more frightened, until one of his nails had elongated. He slashed a bright red line across his chest, and she choked in horror as he pressed her mouth to the gash. There was a brutal thrust into her mind, and subconsciously she watched, sickened, as her mouth licked the blood from his chest and gulped it down like an animal dying of thirst.

He took her, after that, and left her aching in his bed to undergo what she had heard others call the 'conversion'.


	2. And all in one night

He had left the room as silently as he had brought her in, closing the door behind himself, when the first of the spasms hit.

She had thought, at first, that her period had come early, and curled up on the bed with her knees drawn to her chest in an attempt to ease the pain, but as time went on it only got worse, crawling up through her stomach to wrap around her lungs and make her gasp in air, panting like an animal.

Fiery worms crawled through her veins, visible underneath her skin, and she shook and slapped at her and legs and neck in an attempt to make them stop, and perhaps to kill them, crying out in alarm as she thrashed about wildly.

The inferno grew and grew, crawling through her limbs and roaring through her veins like wildfire, scorching her from the inside out from all sides until she felt she might go insane with the inevitable inescapability of each new wave of pain. Somewhere, dimly, she registered that the sheets were slick with something she couldn't see through her tightly closed eyes as she clutched at the fabric desperately in an attempt to ground herself and gain some footing against the agony.

What felt like a liquid bolt of lightening shot up her spine and she arched up over the mattress with a scream before the pain made her roll to the side and throw up over and over and over for what felt like hours until there was nothing left to come out and she clutched the edge of the mattress in blind terror to keep from slipping over the edge and drowning in her own puke as the stress of the pain began to take its toll in the form of fatigue.

Days, maybe, or weeks, it seemed, the fiery worms stopped burrowing their way through her veins, and she came back to find herself shaking uncontrollably in the center of the bed. In the few moments before fatigue took her hostage, she had time to register that she smelled, and probably looked, absolutely awful.

A wave of shame and fear came over her. Nevermind that this man had violated her, both physically and in some way with the taking of her blood that she did not yet fully understand, she had in all likelihood ruined both the rug and the bed beyond repair. After hearing what she had done, not even the nuns were likely to take her back, and there was no doubt in her that the man, whoever he was, would not be pleased.

She had just a few seconds to allow herself to feel outrage for her lost innocence before slipping into silent oblivion.


	3. We Come To A Time of Work And Haste

For three wakings, now, the only thing that had greeted her was the everpresent full moon outside her window and a plate of food which she had been overjoyed to see.

But unable to keep down.

She surmised, after throwing up her third meal and picking her head up from leaning over the windowsill, that presenting her with food she was unable to eat was somehow a part of his deranged plan. Unbidden, she recalled the story of Charai, one of the orphans who had been adopted by a couple that had starved her and then hidden razors in her food, telling her to find them. Without knowing the exact number or nature of the blades hidden, Charai had sometimes gone a week or more without eating before she was desperate enough to make an attempt at the food. This had lasted for over a year until the child had swallowed one of the razors and collapsed, bleeding from the mouth, in the middle of her classroom, only to be rushed to a healer.

Charai spoke with her hands now.

The girl shuddered before making her way to the abandoned plate. She looked at the cutlery for a moment, and, making a decision, snatched up the butter knife and slid it into the sleeve of her nightgown.

When she'd woken on the first night, the bed had been clean with fresh clothes laid at the foot of it. If not for the fact that the door was locked and that she only woke at night, the girl might have been tempted to believe prior events to be only nightmares or figments of her imagination. Knowing better, however, she made her way to the bed and lay down on it, feigning sleep.

* * *

Over the next two days the girl began to contrive of some way to free herself from her present and quite unpleasant predicament. Had she not been on such a high floor of the building, she might have risked making a rope of the bedsheets as they did in fairy tales, but the altitude combined with her ever-present hunger made her rely more on the little stolen butter knife as a reasonable means of escape.

During this time she came across the most astounding of discoveries. Although the daylight made her sleepy and lethargic, she found that when she placed her hand in its rays it tingled rather uncomfortably but did not at all light her on fire in the manner that the old tales of The People told. She expected, quite reasonably, that she would go up in a glorious shower of sparks and smoke and become ash on the windowsill, and to her surprise found herself rather disappointed when it did not happen.

The sun also appeared to have a most remarkable effect on the little knife itself as she stood in its rays while working the metal against the stone of the window, for though it should have taken far longer for her to bring the strong metal to an edge, it seemed almost like putty to the touch of her hands and she came to shape the edge by pinching it between her thumb and index finger more so than by rubbing it against the stone.

She found the sunlight quite pleasant, actually, more so than she had before this life had come and grasped her quite violently in its claws before carrying her off, and oftentimes found herself basking in the last rays just before dusk. If she hadn't been on a mission, she might have found herself more time to revel in this wonder. However, she knew that he would come again soon, whether to force himself upon her once more or to play a game now that she was weakened from lack of food, and would not allow herself to be taken without feeling that she had given some sort of fight, even if she and her captor were to be the only two people who would ever know. She sustained herself on water she retrieved from the tap in the adjoining bathroom, and, taking one last drink as the sun went down, felt somewhere in her heart that this second day of work might be her last.


	4. A fall

In the quiet of the night the girl lay still and pretended to sleep, schooling her mind to the pattern of an unconscious person. The insidious moon still shone outside the window, though it showed signs of waning, and she almost cursed it mentally before reminding herself that someone sleeping would not be mentally flinging obscenities skyward at the moonbeams. She watched herself very carefully after that, being sure to maintain her façade with a concentrated disregard. So focused was she on her task that she almost didn't catch the creak of the door opening. Her hand closed more tightly on the hilt of the knife where she had it palmed up under the sleeve of her dressing gown and she forced herself to remain absolutely still as the door swung lightly closed.

He came into the room silently, slowly, absolutely sure of himself in his domain. Behind her façade she allowed herself a slight mental shudder. This man moved and acted like a sort of large cat, or some even more deadly predator. She felt, for just a second, that she was quite powerless here, in his domain, before pulling herself away from that train of thought and regaining her previous conviction. He carried himself almost regally as he came towards her on the bed, and she felt the light brush of his mind against her own. Apparently her façade was sufficiently believable, for he withdrew after a moment and sat down on the bed, placing a hand possessively on her thigh.

She was quick, surprising even herself, as she came upright and in one smooth motion buried the small knife to the hilt in his eye. His hand clutched tightly around her thigh, and she gritted her teeth against crying out as she felt her bones creak in protest, but a moment later he dropped back soundlessly on the bed and she was relieved to find that she still had the use of her leg.

Carefully she nudged his body with her foot, and found his skin already losing some of his warmth. She crawled up by his head, noticed the wound did not bleed, and touched her fingers to the large vein in his neck before leaning her head down carefully towards his mouth to monitor his breathing. Nothing. She sat up.

For a heartbeat she sat and looked down at him. He was a handsome man, with clean-cut features and wide shoulders, the very specimen of male beauty with his high cheekbones and soft blonde hair. She put a finger to his lips in the traditional gesture of her people (_may the dead speak no more)_ and bit her lip before reaching forward and grabbing hold of the knife.

A great commotion came on the stairs and the door burst open, banging against the wall and allowing several women dressed in what looked to be harem garb to burst into the room. Candles flared to life and the girl pulled the knife out of his body in a smooth motion before backing towards the window, palming the little blade out of sight again and leaving a smear of blood on the sleeve of the white gown.

Letting out a great exclamation, one of the women bent down and began to lick, somewhat delicately, at the wound. More quickly than was possibly natural, the wound on the man's eyelid sealed shut, and without a scar. The girl shuddered. Another tale of The People proven true: they healed with their mouths, and very quickly.

One of the women glanced over to see her by the window, and advanced, then stopped suddenly with an expression of horror. She let out a cry, her arm coming up to point accusatorily at the smear of blood on the child's gown.

The girl leapt up onto the window as the mob advanced en masse, and, just before she threw herself backwards out of the window, she hoped fervently that all the myths of  
The People were as true as the other had been.

If not, she was going to have roughly a minute to feel disappointed about it before becoming a rather interestingly-colored pancake on the ground below.


	5. A revelation, of sorts

After approximately ten seconds of falling, she decided that perhaps this wouldn't be such a bad way to die, if you didn't think about the rather messy death that awaited you below, that is. Exhilarating, it produced copious amounts of adrenaline and offered a different perspective that you could never possibly match in any other experience. She supposed it would also cure you of a fear of heights quite nicely. Unfortunately, it would not only be the most incomparable experience of your life, it would be the _last_ experience of your life.

And she wasn't quite ready to stop living yet.

The ground was approaching all too rapidly, and she grasped desperately at all the memories of birds she had ever seen, only to come up empty-handed with all thoughts gone out and her mind quite blank for a second or two. Then, before she could really even register the thought, a picture of an osprey exploded into her mind, filling her inner eye until she thought her head might explode from the feathery warm all-consuming birdy-ness of it.

For a moment, she thought she'd actually exploded from the force of the vision, or fallen more quickly than she'd thought and finally hit the ground. Her body was contorting, bones snapping and twisting, as a sense of disorientation ran rampant through her frightened mind.

And then, almost unbelievably, the instincts of the bird snapped her wings out and she glided, skimming her feet lightly across the cobblestones of the courtyard.

Two wingbeats, and she was truly airborne. She flew right overhead of the large wolves that were assembling at the treeline, over the treetops themselves, and then right straight up into the sky to loop-the-loop right in front of the moon, performing a sort of bird-version of giving the finger.


	6. Belonging

**Hey, I'm terribly sorry and I know I'm going to burn in hell for being such a terrible person but I don't know how to use the author comments!! I want to say thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, it really is nice to know people read my fanfic, as this is my first one, and it's even nicer to get encouragement and constructive criticism! Thank you again!!**

* * *

Believe it or not, being a bird can become quite boring when you're running for your life.

The girl had been using the form of the osprey for over a week now, and had become quite intimate with this fact. She longed to be able to return to her own form for more than a few hours of sleep. Actually, she wanted to be any _other_ form than this one, but, for the love of god, _don't let it be a bird_!

Not that the land wasn't beautiful from so high up, but you can only take so many rolling hills and valleys carpeted with bright green grass before you start to go slightly crazy in the head. She found herself withdrawing more and more into the consciousness of the bird and letting her personality take a backseat. The osprey was deeply unsettled by the lack of large lakes and bodies of water, and longed for a nice piece of fish, which was in itself entirely more interesting than staring at yet another hill. She could barely remember to take her own form at night when she collapsed, exhausted, to the ground and slept until sunrise.

_Traveling might be quite a bit more fun if I had someone to do it with. _She mused after waking one morning with sticks and leaves sticking out from her hair at odd angles. Picking them out, she lifted her head and sniffed a little bit, hoping to scent water. Ever since her experience with The People and the exchange of blood, her senses appeared to have become sharper. She could hear, smell, and see a lot better than ever before, and, though it unsettled her, she knew exactly when the sun would rise, and set, and exactly which direction she was headed in.

_Or maybe it has nothing to do with The People. Maybe I'm just becoming a bit too birdy for my own good. _She looked at her arm, which had already begun to sprout feathers, and frowned.

_After this next day I will experiment with more shapes_ she promised herself, before allowing her body to snap into the familiar form of the osprey and take to the air.

* * *

To the extreme and almost violent jubilation of the osprey, she came to a lake by day's end. The first thing the bird wanted to do was head straight for the water and start hunting for fish, but, with the promise of later and plentiful fishing, the girl managed to coax its consciousness into the background and become herself again.

The moon had waned quite noticeably, and still provided a little bit more of a reminder of the past few week's events than the girl would have liked, but she refrained from cursing about it too much. Sitting quietly on the banks of the lake, absolutely naked, she drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them.

It seemed like she'd had a life, a name, and some sort of past before the endless days of flying as a bird, but it was hard coming to her and she frowned in concentration, forcing her memories into the lighter front part of her mind with sheer power of will.

A church. Yes, there had been a church, and women, nuns…other children. Orphanage! She had been at an orphanage, and surely there she'd had a name…a name…

She gritted her teeth in frustration. The bit of information she wanted most had not come to her, and in frustration she stood, grabbing a rock, and threw it as hard as she could. To her immense surprise, the rock shot nearly a fourth of the way out before hitting the surface of the water with a large explosion not at all proportionate to its size, or the speed she _thought_ she had thrown it at. Looking down at her hands with an open mouth, she caught sight of the rest of herself and looked away in shame. She knew she was dirty, but it was more the fact that she _was_ at _all_ that shamed her. It seemed that since the man, one of The People, had taken her innocence and changed her, her body no longer was her own, was dirty, and unclean.

She ground her teeth together and strode towards the lake. Damn him, he might have made her into something else and taken a very special part of her, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction, whether real or imaginary on her part, of spoiling this one thing that was most definitely _hers_ for the keeping. With everything else gone, she still had her body, and was quite proud of some of the amazing things she could do with it. She was quite certain that not everyone, not even one hundred percent of The People, could have turned into a bird in such short notice, whether not they were falling off a building.

She reached the shore and, placing her hands on her hips, looked at her reflection quite determinedly.

Large feet, lean calves, and wide hips which sloped gently into a small waist greeted her eyes at first, followed by breasts of what she supposed were an average size, large shoulders, and a finely-sculpted neck. She paused a moment in surprise, realizing that she rather liked that feature of herself, before firmly pushing onwards and, as they say, upwards. Full lips, a small nose, and wide hazel eyes that slanted slightly upward combined with shoulder-length wavy auburn hair and arched eyebrows to create a face that she thought would do quite nicely, and really, in her opinion, wasn't all that bad and could be worse. A memory shimmered in her mind….

_A woman with a smiling face was leaning over her bed, dressed in a nun's habit, and touched the girl's cheek gently as she called, "Sarai…"_

"I suppose that's my name then…" the girl murmured, a little thoughtful, watching her reflection's mouth move, "Sarai."

She tilted her chin back, planting her fists firmly on her hips before throwing her hair over her shoulder with a little toss of her head, and proclaimed, quite regally, to the waning moon

"Ha, I'm _mine_ now!"


	7. A place

It was to be two years before Sarai would come to the place she would make her own.

Midnight, in the red light of the moon she lit upon the shores of a river and sank down to sleep dreamlessly on its loamy banks, her hair spread to form a halo around her head.

The morning came up her as nearly every other day had for god knew how long. Sarai lifted her head dully, watching the orb climb into the sky before closing her eyes once more and sinking down.

_I have slept away the entire night and yet I still tire._ A mirthless smile quirked at the corner of her mouth, reminiscent of a grimace more so than anything else. She pulled herself upright, head heavy, and looked about herself tiredly.

Sarai had to admit that as ready as she was to lay down and die quietly, the place around her had a certain beckoning effect. Interest piqued, she moved to her feet and stood looking about, leaning against a tree for support.

Across to the stream and to the left a large cave opened, the black and white stone giving way to darkness the farther back one looked. Streaks of green wound their way through the marbleized rock in an unbelievably natural manner, though Sarai was sure that the color was anything but normal, and as much as she found herself drawn to the stone she was also equally wary of it. Birds called softly to one another over the sound of the stream, providing her a small measure of peace as she picked her way across the water by stepping from stone to stone beneath the liquid surface. Unbelievably she found her feet carrying her toward the mouth of the small cavern, and, resigned, she did nothing to stop her body from carrying out the compulsion.

_I suppose this might be how the males of The People feel after a few hundred years. It is said they lose emotion. _

Lackluster as she was, Sarai could not help musing to herself as her feet carried her into the cool, pleasant darkness of the cave.

The floor sloped slightly downward, with marks in the stone that suggested there might once have been stairs many hundred years ago. Her footsteps did not echo as she traveled downward, and with each light pat of her bare feet upon the floor fragments of visions floated up to her. Seemingly emanating from the stone, they wound themselves around her.

_People have landed on the western shore, people from another world papa!_

…_it is strange that we have never heard tell of this before…_

Sarai closed her eyes briefly to will the voices away. As much as she would love to lose herself in these half-faded recollections she would rather die of her own volition than by starving to death trapped in an endless parade of things that had once happened. Of their own volition, her hands reached up and pressed gently against a tall pair of double doors. They swung open soundlessly at her touch and she glided inside.

Rubble lay all about the cavern room, a large pile at one end suggesting that perhaps there had been another tunnel there before whatever had caused the inhabitants to move had brought the tons of stone crashing down.

There was nothing at all to tell what the main function of the room might once have been, save that the insistent whispers and visions were stronger here, flashing across Sarai's mind with brilliant colors and emotions-like a kaleidoscope of what had come before.

_I want to try Papi! That is not fair for Jennel to-_

_We must block the tunnel off before the invasive force gets here, you know that the old ones-_

_I don't want to share! Tell her to get her own!_

Sarai's knees went out from under her as she clapped her hands over her ears, heart aching almost unbearably. The visions tugged, persisted "_Listen, please, we have so much to tell you…" _ and she almost gave in, the voices and colors running in a riot around her, shouting, laughing, tugging at what little clothing she wore.

She made to stand and found herself stuck fast, looking down in horror. Sarai had sunk down into the stone, now imprisoned up past her kneecaps in rock that held fast against her frantic attempts to move. Despairing, she cried out as the impressions and memories crashed in upon her like a wave. All around, the walls were flickering, bulging, changing shape and luster before her fading eyes as she felt herself grow weaker and weaker until the only thing holding her upright was the stone which prevented her knees from bending so that she could collapse face first onto the floor from fatigue.

The draining of energy became more and more insistent, the walls and ceiling and floor going almost insane, fluctuating and bulging in her distorted vision as she felt herself losing consciousness. Sarai let out one last scream as the energy pulling through her veins wore her nerve endings raw to the point of agony.

And then she simply passed out.


	8. It really can't get worse, right?

**Bleh, I'm sorry for not updating sooner, and that this is so short!! Things have been insane and I just got over being sick. Am now frantically typing like a three year old on crack (not that I support the idea of feeding your children crack) and hopefully will have another chapter soon!!**

The very first thing that occurred to Sarai, upon awakening, was that the best gift she could possibly ever receive at any point in her life would be some kind of talisman that would knock her senseless when she was about to do something inordinately stupid.

_Like walking in here_. She gritted her teeth, putting a hand gingerly to her forehead where she had struck it on the floor. Closing her eyes, she took a quick mental inventory of her bodily functions and decided that she couldn't possibly feel worse. Everything ached and itched and felt stiff, rather like she'd run a marathon the morning before, except with her entire body instead of just her legs.

_That really would be something to see. _ Sarai allowed herself a quick smile and then winced as that sent a twinge up her skull to the bruise on her forehead, and then winced again when that wince caused more answering aches in the rest of her.

Eventually she ended up laying hunched over on the floor, panting from pain and guessing that things couldn't possibly get much worse, but at least the floor had declined to keep possession of her legs and she could move them somewhat. Attempting to push herself upright, she discovered that it was indeed possible to feel worse than she already did as the room spun and lurched alarmingly about her.

This, also, did not end well and as she shuddered from throwing up very little of what was in her already-empty stomach, Sarai observed that the day ahead was unlikely to be one of the best she'd had the liberty of experiencing.


	9. Companion

After the interesting experience with attempting to stand, Sarai voted to leave walking to the more enterprising and less-injured of the bipedal creatures and settled for inching herself along the floor on her stomach in between bouts of dizziness.

_At least, _she thought in an attempt to console herself, _if I pass out, I won't have too far to fall. _

She sensed dimly that the sun was rising and lifted her head a little higher to note her proximity to the door. To her interest what looked to be a flight of stairs began about four feet from her nose and carried upwards to heights she couldn't tilt her head back far enough to see without risk of passing out. Since that was not very far at all, Sarai decided not to worry about it, and instead focused on first clawing her way to the stairs.

That accomplished, she then focused on clawing her way up them.

_I think that I should have enjoyed myself a bit more at the bottom of the stairs, considering that this onwards and upwards bit seems to be a great deal harder._ Sarai lay her cheek against the cool stone of the floor on the second landing and panted, aching all over with a new intensity.

_I will NOT feel sorry for myself!_

Gritting her teeth, Sarai resumed her climb and was pleased to find that with the next few stairs the bottom of the door came into view and that she was not so far from her goal as she had thought. Quite literally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, she renewed her efforts and at last burst, or rather inched, out into the glorious golden sunshine of a relatively new day, and promptly passed out from becoming overexcited and attempting to sit up.

* * *

_Yes, I really do need a talisman that will knock me out when I'm about to do something stupid._ Sarai kicked herself mentally as she came to staring up at the sky. 

_Then again since most of the stupid things I do tend to knock me out as well I don't suppose that would be too much of a help anyway. _

Rolling over, carefully, she took stock of her surroundings and was pleased to note that although the entrance of the cave had shifted somewhat disturbingly during her time inside it, at least she was a good deal closer to the stream than before.

A long drink rejuvenated a small amount of Sarai's enthusiasm for being alive, regardless of the crappiness of her current state, and as she laid drowsily on the sunwashed banks of the stream it occurred to her that it, being her current situation, could indeed be a whole lot worse.

* * *

Something cold and wet poked Sarai in the ear, causing her to wake with a start. It had been three days since the ordeal in the cave and although Sarai felt well enough to sit up she lost energy easily and had decided that for the time being the best place to locate herself would be as close to the stream as possible without actually being in it. Carefully pulling herself upright, she eyed the creature standing before her with its head cocked at a curious angle and its golden eyes looking at her quizzically. Whatever it was, since she had certainly never come across one before, stood on four legs and was covered in a black pelt. There was a white splotch of fur on its chest and snout at the tip of its large furry tail, which at the moment was going back and forth (the tail, not the splotch) in what Sarai took to be a rather enthusiastic manner. She squinted at it and it sat down, panting, but still looking at her with and expression of utmost curiosity. 

"I'm really not sure what you are, but am tired and you don't look much like you're about to eat me, although I could be wrong." Sarai eyed the creature skeptically.

"However, if you to intend to have me for breakfast, be kind enough to wake me up and ask beforehand." She lay down and rolled over carefully on her side.

Half-asleep, she felt whatever-it-was lay up against her back in the dark and, presumably, settle down for the night.


End file.
